The Princess of Wales will visit Reggio Emilia in northern Italy next week to explore the city’s internationally celebrated approach to early childhood education. The Reggio Emilia philosophy has quietly shaped classrooms around the world.
The Princess of Wales will make her first official overseas trip in more than three years when she visits Reggio Emilia on 13 and 14 May.
“The princess is very much looking forward to visiting Italy next week,” a Kensington Palace spokesman said. They described the trip as a return to international engagements following her cancer treatment. It is an opportunity for Catherine to see first-hand how the Reggio Emilia approach “creates environments where nature and loving human relationships come together to support children’s development.”
The Reggio Emilia Approach
The city of Reggio Emilia, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, lends its name to one of the most influential early childhood education philosophies in the world. Developed in the years following the Second World War, partly under the guidance of local educator Loris Malaguzzi, the approach places the child at the centre of their own learning. It emphasises play-based discovery, the importance of the physical environment — often described as the “third teacher” alongside parents and educators — and the cultivation of personal relationships as the foundation for all development.
The philosophy has been adopted and adapted by nurseries and early years settings across Europe, North America and beyond. However, it remains most fully realised in the city where it originated. The Princess of Wales will meet educators, parents, children, local representatives and business leaders during her two-day visit.
Early Childhood at the heart of Catherine’s role
The Italian trip is the latest expression of a cause that has become the defining focus of Catherine’s public role. Her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, established in 2021, works on the premise that many of the most entrenched difficulties of adult life, for example addiction, poor mental health and relationship breakdown, have roots that reach back into the earliest years of childhood. The centre has sought to bring scientific research on early brain development into mainstream public conversation and to influence policy.
This week, the centre will publish a new guide, Foundations for Life, launched at the University of East London, aimed at those working with babies, young children and their families. In her foreword, Catherine writes that the quality of human connection “shapes how safe we feel, how we relate, and how we process experiences throughout our lives.”
The visit to Reggio Emilia will give that domestic advocacy an international dimension. The city provides a living example of what child-centred education can look like when it is embedded not just in individual schools but in a city’s culture. For Reggio Emilia itself, the Princess of Wales’s presence will bring renewed global attention to a philosophy it has spent eight decades refining.
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